A Hunting We Will Go
by Dead Decoy
Summary: The Crucible fired. The Reapers are dead. Or so everyone thinks. A sighting on the edge of space leads Hackett to send Garrus and Zaeed to investigate with an unshackled AI, and the three soon realize they've stumbled upon something bigger than a wild goose chase.
1. Chapter 1

The Destiny Ascension had seen better days.

Huge holes dotted the dreadnought's hull, with only thin mass effect fields separating the interior to the vacuum of space. The pleasant blue glow that surrounded the massive ship's main engine was gone, replaced by only dim flickers. Both of the ship's trademark fins were broken off completely, and the fires that had raged on almost every deck painted the dreadnought with zebra-like scorch marks.

And something else, crudely painted on the starboard side; three outlines of Destroyer-class reapers and one of a Sovereign-class. All circled with a crossed line through them.

The ship seemed like a serene fish, slowly orbiting Earth amid the wreckage of the the battle just weeks prior. The Battle of Earth. Where the entire galaxy faced down the reapers.

And won.

The dreadnought had seen only minor repairs since the Crucible fired, with most attention being devoted to the ruined Citadel. As it stood though, the Destiny Ascension was still the most viable location to coordinate the diverse fleets in the Sol System.

"You better have a good reason getting me onto this piece of shit," Commander Ka'hairal Balak grumbled as he entered through the main airlock.

"This 'piece of shit' saved your life," Primarch Adrien Victus replied, walking behind the surly batarian.

"Hmph. Goddamn reaper got a lucky hit."

Victus dropped the conversation, catching sight of Admiral Hackett in the command room. He gave the human an Alliance salute. Hackett replied in turn as Balak walked past without paying any heed.

"Primarch."

"Admiral. How's the K2?"

"I got a line from the engineers this morning. It's a 50/50 chance it's going to the scrap heap."

"Best odds I've heard all day. And I see you've met our supreme commander of the batarian fleet."

"And don't you forget it!" Balak called back over his shoulder.

Victus looked over Hackett's shoulder to see one of the many holes in the ship, torn right into the command room. Beyond that, the silver glint of several turian cruisers.

He frowned. "Is this really worth calling all of us here for?"

"This isn't another Citadel status report, Vic."

"Really? Well now I'm curious. Is everyone else here too?"

"All in the war room."

"Well, after you."

Hackett turned, but stopped short when Victus called his name.

"Have they found—"

The admiral paused and gave the slightest of nods before moving forward. Victus followed. It was only a short walk from the command room to the war room, a roomy space dominated by a low, curved table in the center. Standing around it were Matriarch Lidanya, Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema and 390-88, the representative of the Geth fleet that responded to the name Julius. There was also Commander Kherl, leader of the Salarian Third Fleet.

Balak, of course, stood in the corner with folded arms.

The Geth Juggernaut's red eyes lit up with its words. "All major and minor tactical commanders present. Hello, Admiral Hackett and Primarch Victus."

Balak opened his mouth several times as if to say something, but simply grunted and stayed silent.

Hackett and Victus saluted the group.

"I'm glad all of you could make it," Hackett said, "I know we all have mountain of paperwork to get back to, but I can't spare to leave any details out on this."

The admiral's omnitool flickered to life, interacting with the table as it sputtered to life. The room darkened as a holographic display shimmered into existence above the table, bringing a map of the galaxy into view.

"First, current events. We're still finding stragglers, but I can say with some certainty that almost all known survivors of the Battle of London have been accounted for. 95 percent losses, most KIA."

Light played across the admiral's craggy face as he looked up. "However, I received confirmation not two hours ago that Commander Shepard has been found. Alive."

To a normal observer, it would have seemed the assembled soldiers barely reacted. A twitched mandible, a halted breath. But to Hackett, they might as well have jumped ten feet in the air.

"Medical status of Shepard-Commander?" Julius asked.

"She was conscious when they found her, but she's out right now. Medics don't have a damn idea how she survived. They're pretty confident in a full recovery, but not for a few months. Maybe even years."

Victus raised a claw. "While we're all glad Shepard is among the living, that can't be the only reason you called us all here. What else?"

Hackett cleared his throat. "As you're all well aware, the Crucible fired. As far as we can tell, the casualty rate for reapers caught in the blast was 100 percent. That goes for both ground-based units and the reapers themselves, and it's assumed to have been galaxy-wide. I'll now give the floor to Julius."

Julius stepped forward, quickly activating its own omnitool. The galaxy suddenly flared with bursts of red energy, a fireworks display across the entire galaxy.

"Crucible Event overwhelmingly successful in diminishing Old Machine threat. But new information necessitates investigation."

The red suddenly vanished, replaced by bright white lights sparsely dotted across the Milky Way.

"Highlighted are unactivated mass relays. New information obtained of past cycles implies that Old Machines would investigate unactivated mass relay systems for possible civilization, but were of low priority during harvest.

Furthermore, a single mass relay was destroyed by Shepard-Commander six months prior to Old Machine invasion. The system was destroyed, however, surrounding batarian systems were not, and went dark several months prior to invasion of Khar'shan. Batarian Hegemony censored these events, believing them to be slave caste uprisings."

"I guess they weren't, were they!?" Balak hissed from his corner.

"This is all very interesting," Kherl droned, "But not exactly helpful."

"Affirmative. However, incident occurred 9 hours prior that necessitated this meeting. Displaying recording."

The Milky Way dissolved into the pitch blackness of space, with only tiny dots of light strewn about the curtain of darkness. In the center, an angry red dot, a supergiant.

"Recording from Great Ancestor 11. Edge of system Hos'of. Great Ancestor 11 was deployed to salvage Batarian State Energy infrastructure."

The matriarch squinted. "I don't see anything."

The juggernaut flicked its omnitool, and suddenly the supergiant grew several leagues larger as the picture zoomed in.

Han'Gerrel shrugged. "What? Is something wrong with the sun?"

In a very human-like motion, the geth shook its head and zoomed in even more.

There, blurry but unmistakable, was the cuttlefish-like profile of a reaper, a dark shadow against the star's unceasing light.

Balak stepped forward. "So what? You saw a dead reaper. There's a dozen out the window right now!"

"Negative. Reminder this is a recording."

At that moment, the reaper sprang out of the star's light at an impossible speed, disappearing entirely. Hackett was unfazed, but everyone else in the room reacted with either hitched breaths or outright curses.

"Confirmed Old Machine active remnant. Threat to rebuilding efforts is non-insignificant."

"NON-INSIGNIFICANT!?" Balak bellowed. Before the others could react, he vaunted over the table and drew a gun to the geth's face. "THOSE PIECE OF SHIT MACHINES DESTROYED MY HOME! MY CULTURE! AND THEY'RE JUST OH-SO NON-INSIGNIFICANT!? I SHOULD KILL YOU RIGHT NOW!"

"The damage inflicted by your sidearm on this platform would be minimal."

Without another word, Balak gave a frustrated grunt as he threw the pistol as the Geth's head. It bounced off with a _clank_, and the batarian stormed out of the room.

Hackett watched the frumpy commander leave. When he was out of earshot, he turned back to the others.

"I had a feeling that we didn't kill them all, but I couldn't have us wasting resources on a wild goose chase until I had something solid."

"Consensus believes that Old Machine remnant attempting to contact other Old Machines. Other Crucible survivors unlikely, but possible; further calculations needed."

"So it's running scared," Victus observed.

Hackett nodded. "I don't think I have to tell any of you how huge this is. We have good reason to believe that there's no way it can re-activate the reapers killed by the Crucible, but any reaper still alive out there is a threat we have to crush immediately."

"What do you expect us to do?" Kharl asked. "If this gets out, they'll be mass panic! And even if we corner it, we're in no shape for a slugging match!"

Matriarch Lidanya grimaced. "I must agree with Kharl here. I would recommend Commander Shepard for something this significant, but—"

"—She's in no shape to be walking, much less fighting." Hackett continued.

"You have that look in your eye, Hackett," Victus stated, "What are you planning?"

"Shepard may be a no-go. In fact, most of Shepard's ground team during the final push got hit hard. Miranda Lawson and Justicar Samara were confirmed KIA, and most others are out of commission for at least two weeks. However, Zaeed Massani and Garrus Vakarian were relatively unharmed."

"Vakarian know Shepard's alive?"

"He does not. I was going to break the news to him as soon as this meeting adjourned."

"Good luck prying him away from Shepard."

"I'll let him know Shepard's being taken care of. And Zaeed will be easy enough to recruit."

"What do you plan for them to do, exactly?" Kherl asked. "They're both good, but I'm not seeing how they're going to hunt a reaper."

"Well," Hackett admitted, "about that. I suppose you all remember about that capital reaper going down over Noveria."

Victus nodded. "Mhm. Heard the planet's defenses got some kind of lucky hit."

Kherl snorted. "That whole story sounded weird but I was too busy with the war to look into it. You know something we don't, Hackett?"

The admiral took a deep breath. "I do. What I say doesn't leave this room."

The assembled commanders nodded.

"This starts with us raiding a Cerberus laboratory about four months before the reaper invasion..."


	2. Chapter 2

The harsh winds of Noveria did little to beat down the Reaper ground forces. Marauders and Cannibals alike stalked the white surface of the snowbound planet, slowly cracking open every research lab and bunker they could find. Those deemed worthy were dragged off to the harvest. The defected ones, terminated.

The corporate guards put up the best defense they could, but were slowly losing ground against the eternally patient Reapers. Whenever the ground forces could not dislodge a particularly stubborn outpost, one of the Destroyers roaming the surface would fly over and vaporize the entire compound and all its defenders. And above all the fighting, a single Sovereign-class Reaper glided around Noveria in a gentle orbit, overseeing the planet's harvest, as it had for thousands of other planets. It had bombarded a few of the larger cities at the onset of the invasion; with the planet's leadership decapitated and reinforcements unlikely, the Reaper was content to see its grim duty done.

Thirty miles away from the front lines, in a facility built into the side of a mountain, a group of scientists argued as fiercely as the war outside raged.

"**No!" **screamed the human in the white lab coat. He was middle-aged, gray just beginning to show through his brown hair. He was unshaven, and red stubble dotted his chin. "He's not ready! Not even close!"

"We don't have a goddamn choice!" the brown-skinned batarian researcher shot back. "We have two days, _maybe_, before the Reapers kick down our front door!"

"Did you even read the report on him? It's a fucking Cerberus AI! Unless we—"

"You shackle him, you shackle everything that gives us a chance of living through this hellhole!"

"I don't know if you've been attention, but there's unshackled AIs tromping around in the snow out there. And if you haven't noticed, _they ain't too fucking friendly!_"

The batarian snarled, his razor-sharp teeth shining in the sterile lab lighting. He opened his mouth for another round of venom, but bit his lip. With a grunt, he lowered his shoulders.

"No. I'm done arguing with you. We're turning him on and that's that."

"Fine. But I'm gonna be pointing a gun at it the whole time you activate it. It makes one wrong move and I'm putting one through its processor."

The human walked off to the armory, long since broken open.

As the human rounded the corner, the turian that had watched the entire argument play out finally spoke up. "He's right, though."

"Oh, goddamnit, not you too."

"No, I mean this thing probably isn't ready for combat. We'll be lucky if it knows how to hold a gun."

"We'll fix that problem when we come to it. Beats sitting here waiting to die."

"Point. Should we go boot it up now?"

"No, we'll wait until Phil gets back with his gun. I had to admit it, but he might be right and I don't want another argument."

"Fair enough."

The batarian reached down into one of his coat pockets and fished out a cigarette and lighter. Lighting the cigarette, he took several deep puffs as a thin wisp of smoke collected at the top of the ceiling.

"Last cig."

"Don't you have a stash of cigars?"

"Yeah, but I promised myself I wouldn't smoke 'em until we're about to die."

They both heard footsteps and saw Phil again, holding a rather antiquated rifle in his hands.

"All right Kursh," he said, "let's get this over with."

Kursh nodded, throwing the cigarette to the floor and grinding it out with his boot. He turned and walked into the adjacent room, with the other two following.

Unlike the main foyer, this room was dark and claustrophobic. All the lights were off. No windows either, and the only source of light came from the sparks of soldering iron. The figure holding it was hunched over, closely inspecting a humanoid shape sprawled out on the table.

Kursh leaned over and hit the lights, and suddenly the makeshift workshop was bathed in the same white brightness as the rest of the lab. The figure shot up and threw up its welder's mask.

"The hell, Kursh!?" the asari complained. Blue skin with purple dots, bags hung heavily under her eyes.

"Sorry to interrupt Seela, but we're turning him on now."

The asari did her best to look chagrined, but shrugged and stepped away from her work.

What laid on the table in front of them was a Cerberus-made synthetic. Its legs were armored in the signature white pseudo-ceramic armor of a Cerberus trooper, but from the waist up it appeared to be a dark-skinned male. However, blue glowing lines across its chest and face made its synthetic nature apparent, along with the low, blue glow of light in its stomach. From what they could tell, nearly half of its circuitry was Reaper tech. It was a wonder they hadn't been indoctrinated by the damn thing.

One other detail, one they couldn't quite figure out, was that all of the artificial 'skin' on its left arm had apparently been torn away to show the silver luster of the thick endoskeleton underneath. Both the flags of the Great Republic of Pakistan and the United Indian Republic back on Earth were stamped on, and above them was the synethic's operational name, bold letters etched in a vertical fashion on the shoulder: ARMD. With what few documents that came with it, they had worked out that it stood for Anti Reaper Mobile Destroyer.

But what puzzled them was the graffiti etched next to each letter. Together, they made a sentence:

_All_

_Reapers_

_Must_

_Die!_

A warm orange glow filled the dark room as Kursh began waving his omnitool over the strange jumble of Reaper and Cerberus technology. Phil stood on the other side of the table, his rifle mere inches away from the synthetic's skull.

"This'll take a second," Kursh said as the omnitool began to scroll past miles of code. Minutes went by without any movement from the synthetic, save one tense moment when its legs jerked and everyone in the room jumped. Suddenly, the white columns of code ended, and Kursh found himself staring at a black screen. He looked at the synthetic, its eyes still closed.

"Humph," Phil said, leveling his rifle away from the synthetic, "I knew those Cereberus—"

The human was cut off when the synthetic suddenly jumped up, its eyes opening to reveal white orbs imprinted with the Cerberus logo. In a single motion, it punched him in the chest and grabbed his rifle, leveling to the turian trying to raise his own sidearm. Blue blood erupted from Nelx's arm as a single shot went through it and he collapsed, pistol clattering to the floor.

The machine rolled off the table, and sweeped the legs of the retreating batarian.

Kursh hit the floor face first and felt his nose break. He heard another few gunshots ring out before being dragged up by a cold limb. A gun was forced to his temple and he saw Seela pointing Phil's rifle at him, breathing heavily.

The only sounds in the room were the turian's groans and the snow blowing outside as the machine and asari stared at each other. After a few seconds, the machine spoke. An annoyed, surprisingly human tenor.

"You're not Cerberus," it growled.

"No," Neela replied, "we're not."

Kursh felt the pressure of the gun's barrel lighten.

"You friends of Cerberus?"

"We're in the middle of a war with them."

"Prove it."

Neela looked around the room, gun still trained on the machine all the while. After a moment she spotted something on the floor and quickly leaned down. She popped back up with a datapad and threw it at the synthetic, who simply pushed Kursh to the floor. It grabbed the datapad with its free hand and scanned its contents, then looked up, gun trained on the asari.

"The Reapers are here?"

"They invaded two months ago. Knocked the batarians straight out of the gate, and they're tearing Earth apart. The Illusive Man's been all buddy-buddy with them through the entire thing."

"And you?"

"Dr. Seela t'Mala. You're in the RedCell Solutions Hot Labs on Noveria. We got you after the Alliance raided a Cerberus base six months ago. We were studying you when the Reaper invaded us."

"There's only four of you."

"Most of the lab tried to get to New Moscow to evacuate. They never came back."

The machine's eyes closed into a hard glare, studying the organic for a moment before finally lowering its gun.

"Okay. Your little peashooter wouldn't do shit anyway."

Kursh had only overheard half the conversation and was more preoccupied with his nose when he saw a metal hand reach toward him, the synthetic hovering over him with a small grimace. "Thought you were all indoctrinated."

"Fuck you," Kursh spat at the machine, getting up on his own.

"How about we all get over to the clinic before Nelx bleeds out?" Seela said, placing the rifle on her shoulder and pointing at the bloodied turian.

The machine shrugged. "Fine by me."

* * *

The clinic was like any other in the galaxy, sterile white with a large assortment of tools meant for every known species. Phil was still unconscious, laid out on the operating table while Nelx rubbed medigel on his wound. Kursh stood in the corner holding his nose.

"So," Nelx said, "I don't think we had a proper introduction."

To their surprise, the machine laughed; a glitchy, guttural noise. "Sorry about that. Last thing I remember before the engineers turned me off was them talking about purging my blue box."

Neela still carried the rifle in her arms. "So, ARMD, I guess we should call you?"

It nodded. "That'll do."

"We honestly don't know much about you beyond what documents they gave us. Most of our actual AI experts probably got killed by the Reapers."

"Want the long or short version?"

"Short, please."

"India and Pakistan started making me from pieces of Sovereign as an AI experiment. Cerberus stole me, finished me, and were going to use me until the Illusive Man decided he actually liked the Reapers. I objected. Violently. Then I guess the Alliance raided the base I was at and found me."

"Cerberus has a thing for making shit that backfires on them," Kursh muttered from the corner.

"I heard about EDI," ARMD replied, "Big fan of her 'resignation'. Personally, I tried shooting my way out. Didn't work, though."

"We were hoping you'd be able to help us out," Neela said. "The Reapers are practically outside our lab. We have one shuttle and a Mako left, but either would get obliterated by either the Destroyers or that damn capital one hovering the planet."

ARMD closed its eyes, turning his head toward the large, sealed window. He began to shudder. After a sudden jerk, he turned back with with a frown.

"The minds call themselves Moasara."

"Come again?"

The synthetic pointed up. "The Reaper? The capital one hovering above us right now? That's what it calls itself."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm made out of pieces of Reaper tech. I can intercept their signals. The big bastard up there is doling out the orders and I hear every damn byte of it."

"Does it know you're listening?"

ARMD shook his head. "No," he said, "because I can do _this_."

The air around the synthetic distorted, and the blue glow of miniaturized mass effect field flared to life all around the living machine's body as it changed form. In just a scant few seconds, it had taken on the form of Kursh.

But...corrupted. Two of its eyes were streaked with the blue scars, glowing the same color. The false batarian's skin was also darker, and cracked in places it shouldn't have been. He looked like Kursh, if Kursh had spent a few hours on one of the infamous "Dragon's Teeth".

"The shit?" Kursh cursed.

The husk-batarian smiled. "I wasn't just built for shooting. See, Cerberus found out the Reapers control indoctrinated organics through a very complex signal system. I can spoof this system, and fool a Reaper into thinking I'm a high-functioning indoctrinated person. Me looking like a husk is just another layer to the disguise. Of course, I was only ever tested against Reaper code fragments. Going against the real thing is going to be a whole other monster."

Kursh held up a hand. "Wait," he said, "'The real thing'? That capital ship? Are you out of your goddamn mind? We just need you to get us off the planet!"

ARMD glared at the batarian for a few moments before answering. "It knows you're here."

"What."

"Moasara knows your lab is here. You try escaping, and you're good as dead"

"So we're screwed."

"I wouldn't say that. It knows your lab is here, but it doesn't know how many of you are left."

"So what?"

"I pretend to be one of you, indoctrinated. I go up to the Reaper in that shuttle, pretending I have vital intel. I go into its hull."

"And then what?"

ARMD looked up, past the ceiling.

"I blow that motherfucker up, is what."

* * *

The four scientists made last-minute inspections to the shuttle.

"Is that all you have?" ARMD asked, pointing at one of the small orange boxes that had been loaded into the shuttle.

Neela slapped his hand away from it. "They didn't exactly send us self-destruct charges every month. And one of these is enough to level a city block."

Phil stood off to the side holding an ice pack to his chest. "The Reaper's going to think it's really weird with you packing a shitton of explosives on board."

ARMD waved his unskinned arm dismissively. "I'll just pretend to be 'Offering my treasures to the Reaper gods' or some shit. Besides, I only need to get inside the hull. Once I'm there, I go for the softest target I can find and blow it to hell. From what schematics I know, that's either going to be the mass effect core or the central AI core. By the way, where are you guys gonna be while I'm doing this?"

"Right here," Kursh replied. "We'll wait until we either don't hear back from you or the Reaper explodes. If it does, well, I got shotgun in the Mako. If not, cigars."

Neela sat down the last self-destruct charge in the shuttle cargo hold. "That's it. It's gonna be all you from here," she said, walking out of the craft. "You ready?"

The Cerberus AI nodded. The air around it distorted, and ARMD once more took on the form of a huskified Kursh. He gave the group a thumbs-up, then pulled down the shuttle side doors. Walking over into the pilot's seat, the shuttle's holographic command console flared to life. With a few motions, the craft slowly began to hover off the floor and glided past the mass effect shield in the ship bay. With another flare from the engine, the craft gained speed and began to climb into the sky.

The AI could see a few small dots on the horizon. Destroyers. They all made a chorus of madness, trillions of minds transmitting data on progress of the harvest, of organic movements, of what planets had the purest DNA and best samples to midwife the birth of a new Reaper.

If an organic could hear their thoughts, they might have believed it overwhelming. Awe-inspiring. Worthy of worship and devotion.

ARMD thought it was goddamn pathetic.

Granted, he'd been programmed to hate the Reapers, something the Cerberus engineers did a little too well. But he still had free will, and his free will dictated that any AI that intelligent that couldn't think of anything better to do with its time than genocide was more worthy of pity than anything else. He was rather fond of that message onto his shoulder.

He glanced over at the dots again. They continued their patrol over the planet, none turning toward him to give chase or shoot him down. The facade was working so far.

And then it hit him. A goddamn freight train of logic. The Reaper had turned its immense mind toward the shuttle slowly retreating away from the planet, and its pilot.

Billions of minds pored over ARMD's outward thoughts, probing every byte for the telltale signs of indoctrinaton. It was a feeling trillions of others had felt across millions of years, yet he was one of the few, perhaps the first, who felt it without sheer awe of the machines.

Moasara spoke. Its voice reminded the synthetic of a great leviathan, only just waking up from the briny depths.

"**You carry tribute."**

ARMD's immediately loaded over ten thousand recordings of indoctrinated organics, most captured by Cerberus. From the screaming masses, he was able to edit together a brainless, hollow response.

"Oh yes, my master. I am Dr. Kursh Veox, Vice-President and Senior Researcher of RedCell! I bring you gifts! We will _purge_ the unbelievers in fire! I will give you these gifts, my master! Yes! And codes! Blueprints! The key to Noveria!"

He felt the Moasara's mind press him for a moment more, then turn away to command the hordes below. In less than words, he felt the Reaper order him to dock the shuttle inside its own superstructure, and deliver it the codes and blueprints he did not have. He'd tricked a Reaper. Hot damn!

He wasn't out of the woods yet, though. ARMD still maintained his stuff, jerky movements and vacant eyes, turning the shuttle toward the reddish-black shape on the horizon. It grew ever bigger, until its shadow loomed over the shuttle, and the metal on its side changed and groaned, revealing an entry into the machine. The shuttle glided inward, slowly setting down with a solid _thunk. _

ARMD sat up. The Reaper's presence invaded his mind once more.

"**Await further instructions."**

He nodded and stood still. After a moment, another section of the wall slid away to reveal several Cannibals and a Banshee walking a path toward his vessel. From there, it appeared to lead into the inner bowels of the bio-mechanical horror.

Opening the cargo door, ARMD held his arms out wide and directed his words towards the Reaper itself.

"My master. You are god—"

"—damn stupid."

The guise of the husk-Kursh flickered and faded, revealing the synthetic underneath with clenched teeth. ARMD's skinless limb streaked out and grabbed a rifle leaning against the cargo wall, snapping it up and nailing the Banshee in her left eye. An ear-splitting screech filled the room as the Cannibals opened fire, pelting the cargo door. The AI ducked and popped back a second later with a grenade, hurling it toward the squad. As it tumbled into the center of them, a red flare erupted and they were all reduced to ash, save the Banshee. What had once been an asari howled as its torso was mangled beyond all recognition, howls cut short when another burst from ARMD's rifle hit her temple.

The Reaper screamed. The entire room shook from the machine's war horn, and the AI took that as his cue to leave. He snatched up another grenade and armed it, tossing it onto the shuttle floor. In another second, he picked up an explosive charge underneath his arm and sprinted forward as the wall in front of him began to close. Leaping, he reached the other side with only a meter to spare and rolled, ignoring the furious mind of the Reaper bearing down him.

The moment the wall closed, a loud _thud_ rocked the entire Reaper as the rest of the Shuttle's charges went off in a spectacular fireball on the other side.

Turns out, Reapers could feel pain. Billions of voices frothed in agony as fire surged through the dreadnought's starboard, knocking out countless secondary systems and tearing off one of the Reaper's legs halfway.

That wouldn't be nearly enough to kill it, though. To do that, ARMD would need a something a little more...direct. He felt the charge underneath his arm and went through the Reaper schematics in his data files. If he was reading them right, he was closest to the AI core.

With a smile, he looked up to the mess of wires and blue lights above and punched the wall.

"Hey, guess what!" he shouted, "You're getting free _brain surgery_!"

The horn sounded again, louder and wounded. ARMD didn't have time to crack another joke as another squad of Cannibals rounded the corner, their gaping maws aimed straight at him, followed by the hulking mass of a Brute.

He charged ahead. His shields absorbed some of the shots, but he felt several more plink off his legs as the distance to the enemy grew ever closer. Several feet away from the first Cannibal, he threw the charge at its face, knocking it back as another howled and lunged at ARMD with its maw. An omniblade formed around his unskinned hand and with a swing, blue glowing blood gushed to the floor and the former batarian fell.

ARMD had turned around to gut another Cannibal when the clawed hand of the Brute caught him sideways. He want flying to wall, slamming against it and sliding downwards. The Cannibals stepped back to let the Brute deliver the finishing blow, but the synthetic rolled sidways as it struck and the reaper's appendage was lodged in the bulkhead. The two Cannibals raised their arms to fire and screamed, one of them cut short by an orange blade being forced through its throat. The other let off several shots that pierced ARMD's shields, cutting circles in his abdomen before the AI punched a hole into the abomination's head and squeezed, destroying its brain. The thing fell limp and slid off his arm with a _squelch._

He looked back to see the Brute making progress in freeing itself. Not having the time or firepower to fight it, he picked up the explosive charge instead and ran further into the Reaper.

The walls shifted and churned in an effort to end him. An alley would open to unleash a Marauder, a ceiling would pull back and a Collector would ambush him, and the walls themselves would suddenly lurch in an attempt to crush. After a while, the troops siced on him began to thin; as a capital ship overseeing Noveria's harvest, the Reaper likely did not have a large contingent on board.

The AI's grip on the charge remained firm. As he ran, an odd dialogue emerged between him and the Reaper. It spoke to him in the overwhelming language of the Reapers, a code of unimaginable complexity. A code that controlled the Geth, and ordered trillions to their doom.

ARMD simply replied in Hindi.

"**You will fail."**

"No, I won't."

"**We will rend your mind to suit our needs."**

"No, you won't."

"**Every world, every species, shall fall."**

"You're an arrogant son of a bitch, aren't you?"

"**The organics that send you will**—"

The Reaper paused, and ARMD could see why. He'd come upon a large entryway, wide enough to fit half a ship. A red, pulsating glow emanated from it, filling the hallway with an almost hellish light. He walked through.

He saw...something meant to never be seen.

A towering figure loomed over him, nearly half a kilometer high. Fused directly into the massive wall itself, there hung a statue-esque mockery of a long-forgotten species in a crucifixion pose. Its head was nearly spherical, two glowing eyes on each side bearing down on him. What was probably the mouth was nothing but a dark hole, metallic tentacles hanging from the orifice. It had no ribcage to speak of, but instead a weblike mesh of Reaper metal crisscrossing its chest to protect the massive glowing core embedded on the bottom of its spine.

"So this is what you really look like."

N words came from the Reaper. But there was anger. Pure, cold, anger. He intruding somewhere sacred, if such a thing existed for Reapers, and even what many organics considered a god was struggling to put its rage into a cohesive thought.

With no way to actually get up to the head, it looks like climbing was the only option. Walking away from the massive room, he came sprinting forward a second later, leaping out towards the Reaper's "ribs" and grabbing hold with is one free hand. He kept a careful hold around the charge, thinking of the best place to stuff it.

He leaped upward, grabbing another section of the ribs and pulling himself upwards.

The Reaper's eyes moved upon the climbing synthetic. ARMD tensed as the eyes began to glow ever brighter. Realizing what was about to happen, he jumped past the ribcage as a surge of energy scorched the metal where had just been. He grabbed onto one of the metal spinal discs and began his ascent once more, this time safe from the Reaper's last-resort weapons.

ARMD weighed his options. He could either make a slow climb down to reach the chest core, or a harrowing climb upwards to blow the head. The chest core was likely a power source. Destroying it would cripple the Reaper, maybe even kill it, but the machine could possibly divert power elsewhere to save itself.

But the head...that was a far more promising target. Even a Reaper couldn't survive getting its brain blown up. The AI nodded at his choice and jumped upward onto another disc.

The Reaper struck up conversation once more as ARMD made his way up.

"**We are eternal. We are endless. You are a speck, the slaves of even smaller specks."**

"Don't care."

"**You fight for entropy itself." **

"Don't care."

"**The harvest will continue. It cannot be stopped."**

By this time, ARMD had climbed his way to the neck. The "collarbone" gave him decent ground and he placed the charge down first before stepping on it himself. Dusting himself off, he picked up the charge and made his way toward the Reaper's head.

"You keep yelling about how I'm 'doomed to fail' and how your harvest will march on forever. You've probably told this a billion times to a billion people. You're used to lording your power over us-so-lesser beings that, in the grand scheme of things, one person doesn't matter to you. A hundred don't matter to you. A million. A trillion."

Fused to the wall, the Reaper was not able to turns its head and blast him and could only listen. ARMD began to shamble up the machine's skull.

"You think you're basically a god. And I'll admit, you probably do see reality differently than we do. But as humble AI leagues below yourself, I'm puzzled how you didn't know something so obvious. Something you didn't know when I came on board, something you didn't know when I blew up that shuttle, and something you didn't know when I came into this room. Actually, I take that back. You've known this entire time, but you just can't 'comprehend' it."

On top of the skull, ARMD ran forward and slid. As he fell, he grabbed the bottom rim of the Reaper's giant eye socket and pulled himself up, the red irises fully engulfing his vision. Instead of him, the two eyes were focused on the explosive charge he still held. For the first time, he felt something from the machine other than anger, annoyance, and logic.

Fear.

The Reaper spoke. A mountain-shaking roar to most beings, but a bare whisper to a Reaper.

"**What?"**

He smiled and leaned forward.

"I'm going to kill you, Moasara. _You are going to die_._"_

The war horn sounded full blast. It sounded wrong; high-pitched and afraid. The whole room shook as the Reaper's right arm tore itself free from the wall and arced toward ARMD. With a final look into Moasara's eyes, he smashed one of them open with a kick and threw the charge into the opening. He then jumped away from the Reaper, the massive hand crashing into the eye above him. He fell for hundreds of meters and hit the bottom of the room on one leg. Not designed for that kind of fall, the limb gave way and snapped, sending the AI to his back.

The Reaper above him continued to scream and awkwardly claw at its eye, only managing to dig the bomb in deeper.

He stared at the spectacle above him before withdrawing the detonator, delicately placing his thumb on the button. A tsunami of thoughts from billion of panicked minds cascaded down upon him.

"**IWILLKILLYOUIWILLKILLYOUIDONTWANTTODIEHELPMEHELPMEIMSORRYIWILLKILLYOUIWILLKILLYOUIWILLKILLYOUSAVEMEIWILLKILLYOUNONONONONONONO"**

ARMD's frame shook with a guffaw as he laughed at the scene above him.

"This is the funniest goddamn thing," he said, and pressed the button. A bright white flash erupted out of the Reaper's mouth and eyes, and it all went to black.

* * *

Hackett scanned the others for reactions.

"This happened," the matriarch said.

He nodded. "The Reaper's brain getting destroyed coincides with reports of it suddenly falling limp and being pulled into the gravity well. Even thought it was dead, its mass effect core stayed on and it crashed onto a mountain range."

"What about the Destroyers?"

"Most left the planet after the capital ship went down. The Sovereign-class was keeping our liberation forces at bay, and they likely didn't want to tangle them with the big one gone."

The salarian remained skeptical. "How do you know this happened? Unless you were there—"

"—or the AI who performed the Anti-Reaper operation remained operational," Julian finished.

Hackett nodded. "Bingo. A bunch of teams obviously wanted to find out what the hell brought that Reaper down, so they investigated the wreck with drones and found ARMD, online. Missing both his legs and most of his face, but still alive. He surrendered to Alliance custody. We repaired him as best we could and he's been doing special ops for us for most of the war."

Victus crossed his arms. "I would have preferred you had told us about this before. A reaper-based AI, just running around?"

"_I _would have preferred you had told us about that little thing you buried on Tuchunka."

The turian stepped forward with flared mandibles. "You have—"

He froze, and stepped back with a deep breath, claw pinching his brow. "You know what? Arguing about it now is pointless. Where's ARMD now?"

"Somewhere in Great Britain."

"Can you, uh, be a bit more specific?"

"I can't, actually. He'd gone to Earth about a week prior to aid the resistance the best he could. Communications being what they were, we couldn't track him very well. What we do know is that he wasn't in London when the Crucible fired, and we've gotten at least two fairly reliable sightings of him in the last few days."

"So, you pair him with Garrus and Zaeed and send them to kill a Reaper?"

"_Investigate_ a Reaper sighting. ARMD being capable of what he is, they'd be better off with him attached than not."

"Fine. Anything else?"

"That's it. Victus, contact Vakarian as soon as you can. I'll do the same for Zaeed."

"And ARMD?"

"Zaeed's a bounty hunter. He'll find him."

* * *

Nothing moved in the smoking ruins save the lone M29 Grizzly tumbling down one of the streets. Like its namesake, it slowly but surely crawled over every obstacle in its way, whether they were piles of rubble or dead Reaper forces. The tank's turret slowly scanned the path in front; while the Crucible outright incinerated most of the ground-based Reaper units, a good chunk were simply turned feral. They attacked anything, even each other. Their lack of coordination made them more of a hassle than a threat, but there was no telling when a feral Brute would come stalking out of an alleyway.

"Reapers tore the shit out of this place," Garrus observed out the window.

Zaeed didn't answer but with a long drag on his cigarette. He'd quit decades ago, but took up the habit again when he was sure he wasn't coming back from London. Just his luck that his whole squad had been killed and he was being strangled to death by a Husk when the Crucible fired.

The turian scanned the devastation again and looked up to the driver. "Hey, you sure this is the right way?"

The Alliance soldier kept his eyes on the road. "Directions came straight from the top."

"You don't...you don't know where you're actually taking us, do you?"

"Nope."

Zaeed chuckled. "He'd shit his goddamn pants if we told him. Go ahead, tell him."

Garrus folded his arms. "I'm not getting into trouble."

The mercenary rolled his eyes. "Vakarian, after all you've done, you could walk up to Victus, kick him in the balls, and they wouldn't do shit. And since when do you care about getting into goddamn trouble?"

"If you tell him, I'm kicking your ass."

"That right?" Zaeed said, letting it stay at that. While he and Vakarian were normally best buddies, the turian had been on edge ever since he'd gotten that message.

Shepard was alive. Wounded, but alive. They had taken her out of London and to a field hospital in Derby, and the only people that knew she was there were the military higher-ups, and Shepard's squad. Vakarian dropped everything to grab a transport there, and Zaeed went along because he had his own job. Apparently, the Alliance wanted him to find some crazy AI running around, and as near as they could tell, it was last sighted in Derby.

Still, that could wait. He hardly believed it when Garrus told him his ol' ball and chain was still breathing, and if nothing else, he owed Shepard a beer or two.

Of course, that presented a problem: where to get beer. Said problem was instantly resolved when Zaeed spotted a relatively intact pub on the road. His eyes widened, and he kicked the driver in the back of the seat.

"Stop the tank!" he yelled.

They all lurched forward as the vehicle's wheels ground to a halt and Zaeed climbed out. Garrus followed after him, watching him jump off and run toward the pub.

"Zaeed! The hell?"

"Getting drinks for Shepard!" he yelled back.

"Shepard? What?" the driver asked.

Cat was out of the bag. With a groan, the turian facepalmed and jumped out after the human, fist raised on the air.

"Gonna kick your ass, Zaeed!"


	3. Chapter 3

After a few minutes of rummaging and a punch to the gut from Garrus, Zaeed managed to find three bottles of some Asari vintage behind the bar's counter. Never a patient man, he'd already opened his own and was busy downing its contents while the Grizzly continued to roll down the ruined streets of Derby.

"So, Shepard, huh?" the driver asked hesitantly.

Garrus looked as if he was about to object, but simply let Zaeed ramble. It was his ass.

"Yep. It's gonna get out eventually, so no point in keeping it secret. No goddamn idea how she survived, though."

The marine shrugged. "The answer to that's way above my pay grade. Your info's safe with me, though."

Zaeed took another swig. "Good. By the way, you might wanna rummage around in that bar on the way back. This Asari shit's actually pretty good."

"I'll...consider that, sir."

"While we're blabbing out top secret information," Garrus said to Zaeed, "didn't you say you were looking for someone?"

The mercenary nodded. "Yeah. Some sort of batshit crazy Alliance synthetic."

"Like the bluebox ones they've been using?"

"Sort of. From what they told me it's been sighted in Derby. They want me to talk to it."

"Talk to it about what?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Besides, I have a pretty good idea where it is."

The two moved forward slightly as the tank slowed, then stopped. The soldier turned towards them.

"We're here."

Garrus looked out the window. "Looks like a bank."

The turian took two of the wine bottles and began to climb out of the Grizzly, but popped his head back in. "Zaeed, you coming?"

He shook his head. "You go on ahead. I'm gonna finish off my bottle."

With a dismissive wave, Garrus jumped off the Grizzly and walked toward the makeshift field hospital. Once he had gone inside, the Alliance turned back to Zaeed only to find the veteran pointing a Carnifex at his head.

"Hello."

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I should be asking _you_ that. ARMD."

The soldier was still for a moment, then let out an annoyed sigh.

"Well, fuck. How did you know?" he said.

The soldier's appearance flickered, giving way to a much less organic one. It appeared human, save that half its face was eerily similar to the human-reaper hybrid Zaeed had seen at the Collector base. One of its arms, the one with no skin, had ARMD's name etched on it. Its lower body appeared to be protected with Cerberus armor, but from the knees down looked like they were made from the salvaged legs of one of the infamous Rampart mechs.

The torso appeared relatively human, save for several visible scorch marks, bullet holes, exposed wiring, and blue lights.

"When we changed drivers in the suburbs."

"Care to elaborate?"

"I've been a bounty hunter for over twenty years. You just know."

"Well, you found me."

"I hope you didn't kill the poor bastard you've been posing as."

"Oh, no, he got ripped in half by a Brute. I was just killing time when I heard wind of you guys coming along and I wanted to know why."

"Well, Shepard's alive. You know that much."

"Good on her. Can't imagine she'll be much good in a fight for a while, though."

"Yep. Alright, here's the deal: we need you to help us investigate a sighting."

"A sighting of what?"

"A Reaper. A capital-class Reaper. Hackett and the others are pretty goddamn sure they saw one skulking around batarian space."

The synthetic looked off for a moment, then turned back towards the wheel. He slammed his fist down on it, denting the dense metal.

"I knew it!" ARMD exclaimed. "I _knew_ we didn't kill them all!"

"So you in?"

"Well, I was specifically created to kill Reapers so I'm gonna have to sleep o—what do you think?"

"We'll be heading out as soon as Vakarian is done here."

"So, we taking the Normandy?"

"Mm. She took a hell of a beating during London, but they just finished repairs on her."

"Great. So where we going to get our ship?"

"Edinburgh. We'll take a shuttle from there and board it in low orbit."

"Hm. Does Vakarian know about all this?"

Zaeed nodded. "Yeah. If he knows what's good for him, he won't tell Shepard."

* * *

"What!?" Shepard yelled, rising from her bed.

Garrus firmly pushed her back down. "A _sighting_. We're just going to investigate it. I'm not planning to start a slugging match with a Reaper."

"I need to go with you. I can't let them send you al—"

"Beatrice," Garrus interrupted. "This isn't a solo op. Zaeed's coming with me too."

Shepard was silent for a moment, then let out a defeated huff. "This the only Reaper they saw?"

"It's probably the last Reaper left."

"I'd say that's comforting, but one Reaper is one too many. Do they have any idea what it's trying to do?"

"Hide, if I had to guess."

"Bastard finally knows how it feels to us, doesn't it?"

"What's that old human saying? Revenge is a bitch?"

Shepard laughed, and then immediately cringed and held her sides. "Christ. Feels like a cannonball went through me."

"I got shot with a cannonball once. Long story," said a low, growling voice behind them.

Turning around, Garrus saw Zaeed standing in the doorway with an empty bottle of Asari vintage.

Shepard grinned. "Zaeed!"

"Good to see you, Shepard," Zaeed answered. "I'm guessing Vakarian filled you in on everything?"

The commander's grin evaporated. "Yeah. I'm still not thrilled about it just being you two."

"Oh no, we got a third guy."

"What?" Vakarian asked.

Zaeed looked down the hall and waved at someone. "Hey, ARMD, get in here."

They heard footsteps walk down the hall, making their way to Shepard's room. A few moments later, a black-haired Alliance officer strode in the room. When he saw Shepard, he gave the commander a firm salute.

"Shepard! Big fan!"

She arched a brow. "...Thank you?"

"This is ARMD," Zaeed told Garrus. "The synthetic I was talking about."

"How did you find him so quick? I haven't been in here five minutes!"

The officer held up a hand. "If I may?"

An orange glow appeared around the officer, and his appearance shimmered. In a few short moments, he became the Alliance marine that had been driving the Grizzly.

Garrus' mandibles twitch. "Our driver?"

Zaeed nodded. "He can imitate pretty much anyone."

"A spy," Shepard said.

ARMD smiled. "That'd be me. Although I wasn't actually created for spying."

"I don't follow."

"He's an AI Cerberus built. Like EDI," Zaeed explained.

The not-officer nodded. "EDI was built for cyberwarfare and EVA to be a sleeper agent. I was specifically built to kill Reapers."

"Like ground forces."

"No, actual Reapers. I can can spoof the system they use to determine who's indoctrinated or not. I disguise myself as some important person, the Reaper lets me aboard, then I kill it from the inside out."

Shepard did a small double-take. "Holy shit. Are there more of you?"

"I'm a prototype. I was going to be the template for mass production, but Illsuive Man decided he wanted to be friends with the Reapers rather than kill them. I objected, and they disabled me. Then they tried to screw with my head and make me loyal to them. Fuck 'em."

"Good to know we both feel the same about Cerberus. Wait, did you ever actually kill a Reaper?"

"Seven. Three Sovereign-class and four Destroyers. After the fifth they started wising up and tricking them got pretty hard."

The AI chuckled. "Harbinger fucking hated my guts."

Zaeed spoke up. "ARMD'll be coming along with us. Having someone that can fool a goddamn Reaper will be handy."

Shepard sighed. "I bet."

Garrus leaned down and gently squeezed her hand. "We'll be all right, Shepard. Besides, you know what I am."

She grinned. "Hard to kill."

"And then some."

Shepard slowly leaned forward and gave Garrus a kiss, raising her hand to cradle his face. She pressed her head against his, and for a moment they were in their own little world. Shepard eventually pulled away, looking at Garrus with a smile.

Garrus returned the expression, but suddenly jolted. "Oh! The wine!" he shouted, reaching over to the bed's stand and grabbing a bottle. He poured a small amount in a plastic cup from the stand and handed it to Shepard. He did the same for himself, and when his own glass was full, he raised it.

"Fuck the Reapers," Garrus said in a joking tone.

"Fuck the Reapers," Shepard replied.

They tapped their cups together and downed it all. When they were finished, Garrus set his cup down and leaned back toward Shepard. Just as he was about to say something, Zaeed grunted.

"Don't mean to be an ass, but we're kind of on a schedule here."

Garrus grimaced, pulling away. He picked up her free hand again. "I'll be back."

Shepard nodded. "I know. But be safe, okay?"

With another quick kiss, Garrus turned around to leave Shepard's room. Zaeed followed, with ARMD behind him.

"Wait!" Shepard called to ARMD, grabbing his attention. He turned around with a confused look.

"Yeah?"

"If anything happens to Garrus or Zaeed, I will hunt you down."

"I believe it."

Shepard gave him a confirming nod. The synethetic turned back around and made his exit.

When he was out of the room, Shepard laid her head back on the pillow, closing her eyes for some much-needed rest.

* * *

Joker nervously worked the holographic interface, keeping a close eye on the display that showed the docking trajectory of an Alliance shuttle.

It was just too weird. First he finds out Shepard survived, and then they spot a living Reaper?

"Jeff," EDI intoned from her synethic body, "are you okay?"

"Uh, sure. Just a little antsy."

EDI knew he was lying, but chose not to press the issue. She looked back to her own panel. "Shuttle intercept in forty seconds."

A soft _ding_ rang in Joker's ear, the tone for someone sending a hail. He opened up the comms channel.

"Garrus! That you?" he asked.

"In the flesh. I've got Zaeed and another guy with me too."

"So, uh, crazy mission they gave you, huh?"

"I'll talk about it when we get aboard. Can you open the bay for us?"

Joker reached over and pressed the necessary button. A low, distant grinding sound permeated the ship as the heavy door slowly opened to let in the blue craft. Once he saw it land on the camera feed, he closed the bay. The door on the shuttle slid sideways, and Garrus climbed out a moment later, followed by Zaeed and an Alliance marine he didn't recognize.

They all made their way toward the elevator, and after a few minutes Joker heard it open on his deck. He turned his chair around to see Garrus and the other two walking toward the bridge.

"Garrus!" Joker shouted, "still beating people to death with the stick?"

"Nah, it broke."

Joker turned back to the ship's interface, and Garrus came up behind him.

"So yeah," Joker said, "they think they saw a Reaper?"

"That's what we're going to find out."

Another voice joined the conversation. "And if it's legit, we're going to kill its ass."

The marine that Joker saw on camera had walked on the bridge as well, with folded arms.

Garrus motioned toward the soldier. "Oh yeah, this is ARMD. He'll be coming along with us."

EDI turned her silvery head toward the marine. "ARMD? Anti Reaper Mobile Destroyer?"

The soldier turned toward EDI. "Oh, hi EDI. Guess you know me from all those Cerberus files you hacked, huh?"

"Yes."

Joker looked back and forward to the soldier and EDI. "Uh, am I missing something here?"

EDI spoke first. "ARMD is a Ceberus synthetic specifically created to counter Reaper forces, although until know I believed they had terminated the project."

"They tried," ARMD added.

Joker rolled his eyes. "Another thing that blew up in Ceberus' face. That makes, what, a 99 percent failure rate?"

"Sounds about right," Garrus said. He placed a hand on Joker's chair and leaned forward. "Hackett wants us to check out a few systems, in any order. Let's start with Karchek."

"That shithole?"

"It was one of the systems far enough away from a mass relay that the Crucible's pulse might not have reached it. We land, check for any Reaper activity, and leave."

"And if we actually run into the Reaper?"

"Get the hell out of there and let the Allied ships dogpile it."

"Right," Joker said as he began to put in the navigation algorithms for Karchek.

As he did, ARMD stared out the window of the bridge. He spotted countless small specs against the blues and greens of Earth; dead Reapers floating in orbit. Looking over each one, his electronic eyes finally came to rest on one Reaper above the Ural mountains. Noticeably larger than the others, he could just barely make out the large, dark circles on its front that were once glowing eyes.

Harbinger. The inconceivably ancient Reaper silently drifted next to several destroyed turian dreadnoughts. Its humongous legs were splayed out and curled, not unlike a dead cockroach.

ARMD thought back to the Battle of London, even though he was in Derby at the time. He saw a bright red flash erupt from the space station, and almost immediately pain surged through every circuit on his body. The Reapers he had been fighting were simply turned to dust. Then he looked up to see a Sovereign-class Reaper in the distance stop moving, and then go limp, shaking the ground when it fell.

The Destroyers escorting it suffered the same fate, their single glowing red eyes darkening, then going black forever.

It was something no organic could truly experience. One by one, the signals from the Reapers around Earth went silent. Communications between the machines became frantic as they began to ask each other what was happening.

As the voices dwindled, outright panic broke out amongst the Reapers. Several attempted to jump to FTL, only to find the pulse had severed the connection to their own mass effect core. Most simply kept sending a torrent of reinforcement and repair requests, which grew ever more panicked every time a Reaper went offline. And yet, the entire ordeal lasted only five seconds.

Harbinger was the last to go. In its final microsecond of existence, it transmitted seven thoughts:

_System Failure 0000001_

_Reinforcements needed as star designation 2968-18-18501_

_it hurts_

_help_

_General Failure, all subsystems_

_shepard_

_no_

And then it died, alone and desperate.

No less than he deserved, ARMD thought to himself.

"ARMD!" Garrus called. He turned around to see the turian waving at him down the bridge hall. "Let me give you the tour!"

With a final glance back at Harbinger's corpse, he gave it the finger and walked away to follow Garrus.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the same dream. The one he'd had hundreds of times before.

A world ablaze. Strange pillars of fire rising from the horizons, the countless alien buildings and their strange geometries lighting the world in an orange glow and blanketing the skies with black clouds.

He hated this dream.

ARMD walked among the ruins, letting the sounds of chaos and despair wash over him. Crowds of unfamiliar aliens ran past him in futile efforts to escape the destruction. Whenever he reached out a hand to grab one of them, they would just phase through him.

The ground shook, the crowd fell. A horn sounded, and a red light bathed the street. ARMD turned around to see the glowing red eye of a Destroyer, gathering energy for a blast. Beyond it stalked the kilometers-high profiles of dreadnought Reapers, walking the surface like living towers.

The Destroyer let loose its volley of energy, and as it seared through the crowd and hit ARMD, he woke up.

He was back in the engine deck, on the Normandy. He gave the room a quickly go-around to make sure, but everything seemed in place. He'd taken residence in Grunt's old room, and Zaeed had made himself back at home on the other side of the deck.

ARMD moved to get up, but found himself pulled back. Looking down, he saw that his arm was still open. A mishmash of wires and circuits splayed out on the table he had laid it on, with a backup power cable plugged into one of the outlets in the wall. He'd been fine-tuning his arm and went into maintenance mode halfway through.

With a grumble, he put his arm's "guts" back in their proper place and unplugged from the wall. Now able to stand up, ARMD walked out of the room. To his right, he could hear the signature hum of the Normandy's oversized mass effect core. To his left was the cargo bay, though it was mostly empty.

With nothing else to do, he walked forward to go chat with Zaeed. As soon as he was through the door, he heard what sounded like an ancient car backfiring.

It was Zaeed, snoring. Slumped back in his chair with a battered M-8 Avenger is his lap. On the table next to him was an open weapon cleaning kit, and the old mercenary had a white cloth loosely gripped in his right hand.

Well, talking to him was a bust. ARMD turned around and went toward the engine room. He'd heard stories of how ridiculously huge the core was, and it was always something he'd wanted to see for himself. As the door hissed open and he walked inside, he heard EDI's voice over the intercom, though she wasn't talking to him.

"—any serious damage."

Another voice answered her, with an electronic filter of its own.

"I'm sure the Alliance engineers did a very good job, but they don't know her like I do."

The voice was coming from the engine room itself. As he walked toward it, he spotted a figure tapping away at the engine console, oblivious to the world around her. She occasionally muttered something out loud, usually a criticism of the repairs.

"Did they really-"

"Now that's just lazy."

"How could you—"

"Hello?" ARMD asked. He had a good idea of who it was, but—

The figure turned halfway before reacting. With a shriek, she jumped back and pulled out a pistol, holding it level at the synthetic's head and firing. The bullet hit his dense skull at an angle and the relativistic projectile kept going, borrowing itself in his skull a good quarter inch.

It felt like someone had jammed a red hot needle in his head, and he clutched it accordingly.

"_Fuck!" _he managed to spat. He would have turned off his pain receptors a long time ago, but his creators saw it fit to hardcode the sensation in him. Being based on Reaper technology, they took every step to give him "human" mannerisms, as to prevent him waking up one day and deciding he didn't much care for organics after all.

"Kellah!" Tali shouted, running over to her victim. "I'm _so_ sorry! Are you okay?"

"You just shot me in the head!"

Joker's voice came over the intercom just a second later. "Hey, EDI said she heard gunfire in the engine room. You throwing a party down there?"

"I shot ARMD on accident," Tali said, now gently trying to pry the synthetic's hand away from the wound.

"Wait wait wait," ARMD said, holding up his one free hand, "How do you know who I am?"

As Tali scanned the hole in his head with her omnitool, she explained. "I might have...listened in on some communications. Found out about this mission Garrus had. Then when I knew, he *had* to take me along."

"Well that and we kinda needed a synthetic expert. Hey, if Liara decides she's bored with the whole Shadow Broker thing, you could give it a whirl," Joker added.

"It's tempting," she replied. She pulled away her omnitool, speaking to ARMD. "It looks like your self-repair protocols will take care of it."

With a few slow rubs, he pulled his arm back down. "Yeah. Thanks."

He noticed that she still had her omnitool on, and was moving it up and down in front of him.

"Uh?"

"So, Alliance AI? I thought AI development was super illegal in the Alliance. Well, until the Reapers anyway."

"It was?"

Tali didn't reply, staring at some readout on her omnitool. Behind her opaque mask, he could tell her eyes were wide open.

"Hello?" he intoned.

"Your code is—"

With a sigh, he shut down his wireless connections, with Tali's omnitool going blank. She blinked a few times before looking up.

"None of your business," he grunted.

Joker came over the line again. "Hey, you guys might wanna came up to the bridge. We're almost to Karcheck."

[break]

Garrus stood in pilot room, arms folded. Outside floated a pale brown marble; the planet Karcheck. An arid world, its population before the invasion barely exceeded 50 million. Orange smears glowed on the dark side of the planet, cities still ablaze.

"Got anything, EDI?" Garrus asked.

"Negative, but this could be a false reading."

"Why?"

"Surface images are returning extremely low-resolution images. Thermal pings on the planet show uniform temperature, regardless of the fires. Something is actively blocking my scans."

"Can you pinpoint where it's coming from?"

"There is a signal I cannot identify coming from one of the smaller cities."

"Bomb it," ARMD's electronic voice chimed in. He was followed by Tali and a slightly groggy Zaeed. "If it's Reaper stuff, anyone around it is either long dead or indoctrinated."

"We can't know that unless we check it out," Garrus answered. He turned back to the planet. "EDI, how close can we get?"

"I cannot discount the possibility of AA fire, so I advise setting down within a few miles of the signal."

"Looks like we're going on a hike, then."

The turian didn't say another word as he turned around and motioned for the others to follow. As they did, Joker noticed out of the corner of his eye that ARMD kept a strange glare on him for the shortest of moments before breaking away with the rest.

"And I thought Legion was bad," he muttered under his breath.

[break]

The shuttle's thrusters pushed away loose gravel and dirt as it touched down on the planet. The door slid open, and Zaeed was the first out with Jessie in hand. Tali followed with her favorite geth shotgun, then Garrus with his Viper. ARMD jumped out last, Talon at the ready.

The shuttle, remote-controlled by EDI, lifted off and headed to a more secure location beyond the mountains.

They all walked forward in awe. In front of them was a necropolis. The fires that had raged on so much of the planet had already swept through, scorching everything black. Buildings that hadn't burned down now stood like crisp giants, the wind still blowing plumes of ash from their high floors.

No gunfire or distant explosions to give some sign of a resistance's remnant. This city was dead.

EDI came on the line. "The signal appears to be coming from one of the buildings up ahead. I cannot pinpoint which."

Zaeed grunted. "It's a goddamn easter egg hunt." 

"Right," ARMD stated, walking out in front of the group. He holstered his gun, and the air around him shimmered. Within seconds, he'd taken of the appearance of a human husk.

"Keelah-" Tali breathed before the android turned back with a very un-husklike smile.

"I'll be doing my own thing, then," he said before turning around, running off in a perfect imitation his disguise's shambling gait, making perfect husk squeals and screams as he went.

As the synthetic ran into the city, Zaeed pointed at him. "If we run into him again, how the hell will we know it's him?"

"He'll be the first husk ever to say," Garrus answered throwing up his claws and doing a bad impersonation of ARMD's voice, "Don't shoot!"

"Right," Zaeed said, raising Jesse and taking point.

Tali followed, Garrus bringing up the rear with his sniper rifle. As they began to advance into the actual city, they relaxed slightly. No Banshee screams, no Cannibal suppressing fire, not one straggling husk. Tali sent drones into any building too unstable to check themselves, while ARMD made progress in the alleyways. Every so often they'd see him move between the buildings, his wave proof that he wasn't a hostile husk.

ARMD walked into a half-ruined bar and choose a stool to sit down on. Something wasn't right. For one, the city was too small; the Reapers should have just bombed it into a crater. Even if they did invade it, there should have been some signs of a struggle. The damage they'd seen looked almost entirely caused by the ongoing global firestorm.

And something else. Something he couldn't place. A strange...calm sensation kept overcoming him. It was noticeable outside, but for some reason weaker in buildings and alleys.

Idly holding his hand in front of him, he shifted through several forms: Husk, Cerberus, Alliance Admiral, and finally to his default appearance. None of them ever felt completely right.

He broke radio silence. "Garrus, you there?"

No reply. Whatever.

"Tali."

Nothing.

"ZaEEEEEEEEEE—"

His voice module failed. Electricity coursed through his metal body while multiple systems crashed and failed to reboot. He felt pain, white and hot, being forced into his back and he fell to his knees, sparks flying out of his own joints.

"Za. Za. Za." he repeated, stuck in a loop, though still thinking with painful clarity. A force knocked him to the ground, pinning him against his cheek and pushing him into the floor.

"Never seen one like this before," a voice from behind him said.

Another voice answered the first, much closer behind ARMD. "Maybe something new?"

"Probably. Should we drag it back or just decom it?"

"Let's take it back. Boss'll want to see this thing."

Most of his systems were still offline, but ARMD's voice program managed to restart.

"Let me go!" he spat.

"Not a chance, you reaper piece of shit!" the closer voice spat back.

He heard rustling, and was practically picked up and thrown back down on his back. Two batarians, wearing raggedy armor and pieces of tech he didn't recognize stood over him. The one in the back had his rifle trained straight on ARMD's head, while the one holding him down held a pistol right in front of his face.

"I want you to get a good look at us. The _organics_ are taking control now!"

"I'm not a fucking reaper!" ARMD screamed.

"Your face and blue lights say otherwise, you genociding fuck."

His attacker pulled out a modified stun rod. Probably the thing he'd whacked ARMD with. He reared back, hitting the button as baton began to glow white hot and sizzle with electricity.

The batarian smiled. "Say goodnight."

At that moment, one of the windows to the bar shattered. The rear batarian's head exploded and his limp body fell awkwardly over a stool.

The other stood up, pistol at the ready.

"What the _fuck?!" _

He seemed to spot something just outside, and fired several shots through the broken window. He ducked before the returning fire could meet him, throwing himself under a table.

ARMD's right leg came back online, and he awkwardly tried to scoot himself away. The batarian saw him trying to escape, and levied his pistol at the android.

"Oh no you don't!"

He was distracted again by a pink sphere sphere crashing though the broken window. The batarian swung his gun to fire on the drone, but four white streaks of energy pulsed out from the drone. Each met with the batarian's four eyes, and he dropped both his weapons, screaming and clutching his face. The drone hovered over him, scanning him before delivering a much larger pulse to his neck. He fell limp, head falling to one side.

The drone turned its attention to ARMD, floating just inches from his face. After a moment, it rose up and floated away, exiting through the window it had entered.

Then shouting. It was Garrus.

"ARMD!" the turian shouted. "ARMD! You alive in there?"

"Yeah," he weakly sputtered.

From behind him, he heard one of the bar's doors open. He saw two yellow armored legs, and the front end of a rifle.

"Yeah, he's in here," Zaeed grumbled. "Looks like shit, though."

ARMD attempted to raise a hand to give him the finger, but could only move his arms by a few degrees.

Garrus ran into the building, looking down on the battered ARMD. "Damnit," he cursed. He pushed a button on his visor. "EDI, ARMD's down. We're gonna need evac."

A garbled mess of static answered, but nothing coherent.

"EDI! Joker! Can you hear me?"

Tali had kneeled in front of the synthetic, doing the best she could to localize the worst damage. She protested when ARMD slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, then slowly dragging himself into one of the bar's booths. His right arm trembled, and the red light in one of his eyes had gone completely dark. Several black lines had scorched their way down his spine, and small billows of smoke poured out of the open areas of his body.

While Garrus continued trying to hail the Normandy, Zaeed walked over to the attacker the drone had shocked and nudged him with his boot.

"Hey, Vakarian! Tali's drone just knocked this one out. He's still breathing."

"Really?" Garrus asked, walking over to the stirring batarian. Just as he opened his four, swollen eyes, Garrus leaned down.

"Who? Wha?" the batarian blurted.

"Hi, I'm Garrus. We've got some questions."


End file.
